What does it take for exclusion?

[Goonie1]

My DC is being bullied. It’s been awful and I’m dealing with it through school and by other routes. This isn’t a post about what’s being done about that.

I was thinking about my time at school many moons ago, and if anyone had done what this bunch had done, I’m quite sure they would be frog marched out of school, never to be seen there again. I raised this and school have said things are very different these days, which had me pondering what it actually takes to be excluded from a school these days. Please share your stories/experiences.

IABU - of course things are more lenient these days, and that’s how it should be

IANBU - the discipline system in schools has gone to the dogs and the system needs to be tougher

Depends on the school. The school I used to work at was very hot on bullying and it was one of the fastest ways to get yourself excluded.

YANBU schools have always been crap when it comes to bullying. I was bullied for years, to the point I'm a misanthropist in adulthood. The most that happened when this bitch drew my blood was a suspension.

School have told me they are using a graduated response. But one particular incident was in my opinion enough to be excluded however, school don’t seem to think so. Friends have told me schools will very rarely exclude these days due to the legalities and financial reasons and also that all children have a right to an education (to which my response always is that children also have a right to feel safe in school!)

I’m really sorry that you went through that. I hate bullies. The damage they can cause is huge.

That is distressing. This was a very well respected private school and I think parents still being on the hook for fees during an exclusion means that most are way more on board with forcing ratbags to pack it in.

Yes I think that would nudge them into action!

Racism got a one day suspension, followed by 2 days isolation when my child was targeted.

Im only aware of 2 permanent exclusions. One kid set fire to the school, and the other was permanently disruptive, swearing at staff and low level violence. School did the permanent exclusion once an alternative provision agreed to accept him after about 3 years. It was a brilliant move for him, and he eventually walked out with a handful of GCSEs and a college place. I've lost track of him now tho.

Permanent exclusion is hard to achieve, the other child has to do something that breaks the schools behaviour policy, so bullying would have to be actual physical assault for example. The graduated approach is Assess, Plan, Do, Review... So what have they actually done , have they separated the bullies into different classes etc, do they use restorative justice?
I've worked on the local authority team which processes permanent exclusions and it's literally when there is no alternative, the DFE has a whole code around permanent exclusions and even if schools do issue one, the parent still has the right of appeal after the governors meeting, so it could still be overturned.
What's actually happening between these children and yours? If school can show that they are acknowledging it and dealing with it then it will be very difficult for them to issue a permanent exclusion (though there is a code for persistent disruptive behaviour) and unfortunately bullying is often seen as subjective unless it's actually passed into physical assault.

it’s shit.. it’s now all about “how awful of you! How unkind!! You’re putting your own child above the other who is violently attacking them?! How dreadful!!!”

So often they will say that the perpetrator has SEN and they can't exclude as it's disability discrimination. The deputy also said to me 'if you knew what this child went through at home, you would appreciate how lucky your child is' Which is absolutely no help at all to the child being bullied, they just want and need it to stop.

I withdrew my child until they could guarantee her safety, within 48 hours this child had to been moved to another class and allocated a 1 to 1 at lunchtimes to try to keep her away from my daughter and another child.

Oh it’s most definitely physical assault. The incident I refer to as IMO being enough for exclusion resulted in a broken bone. But before this, there have been other physical incidents.

Have you gone to the police? If school aren’t doing anything about physical assault, definitely report it to the police.

My friends daughter was beaten, lost consciousness and continued to be kicked. The video that went viral showing this incident was how my friend found out. Not through the school…, through a video.
She was taken to hospital where she had several stitches in her abdomen and chest due to the bully kicking her with pointed shoes, making lacerations, and she was cat-scanned and had a moderate-to-severe concussion. My friend refused to send her daughter back until the bully was gone….she is still waiting. This happened in January, first day back, and the bully still swans around the school like she owns it. Obviously I don’t know about police involvement but I know there must be something.
will the school expelled the child? Will they fuck - the bully is besties with a teachers child, so they don’t want to piss off the teacher by expelling her child’s bestie.
Oh and the “reason” given by the bully? “Friends child said they think theyre gay and we don’t want gaybos at our school” so it’s also a hate crime as the bullies friends were screaming “kill the gaybo” in the video….

@Goonie1 councils make it VERY HARD to PEX (permanently exclude) a child nowadays.

Every box has to be ticked. All SEN ruled out. Evidence of any SEN given the required adaptations. If there is a teeny tiny box unchecked then they will find it.

All of my above post is to show you are not alone in this and also make sure you document everything. Make police reports and apply for SAR from school - you want EVERYTHING they’ve ever had on your child. Because that’s stuff you can take to the police. Good luck

Not a clue. My 9 year old was bullied by the same boy for 2 years. Strangled until he passed out, had a knife from the dining room held to his stomach while he threatened to stab him, cut his stomach with the metal end of a pencil he’d taken the eraser out of and then bent to form a blade, punched regularly. The boy who was bullying him spent a lot of time in the heads office but not even close to excluding him. When I asked why we weren’t at that point the Head basically said the bully had a right to be educated too and they would never be excluding him. My son is now in a different school and thriving. I later found out three other kids had left the school that year due to unresolved bullying.

Sorry to hear your child is being bullied, it’s horrible to witness as a parent and I hope it gets resolved for them.

Then I'd suggest you request an urgent meeting with the head teacher and the chair of governors. If you get no joy from that then contact the fair access team at your local authority. The problem you'll have now will be that the school are unable to issue a permanent exclusion retrospectively, they also can't convert a suspension into a permanent exclusion, so any 'past' incidents can't result in a permanent exclusion now. If this is a state school then they should be able to coordinate a managed move for the child doing the bullying as they would be classed as 'at risk of exclusion' , that could also involve the other child being 'directed off site' ... If it's an independent school then unfortunately they aren't bound by the DfE code for permanent exclusions .

My son had an awful year last year, due to one child being repeatedly violent towards him. He had previously been violent to a number of other children too, and very little was done about it, at most he lost lunch time.

This year, we’ve been told that if the children bring in any toys from home it’s an automatic stage 4 disciplinary, which means suspension.

So, toys are worse than being punched and kicked, apparently.

The problem is due to the massive increase in SEN, and lack of specialist schools, PRU’s are being used to support them. All PRU’s are over max capacity. So where do the excluded kids go! There’s also a lot of politics behind the scenes between school and LA. I know our local mainstream with 1.5k kids hasn’t done an exclusion since 2018, because there is literally no where for them to go

@ToffeePennie That kid is dangerous most would shit themselves if their actions caused another kid to lose consciousness but to carry on with the attack id say was unusual .

For the grace of God the attack victim didn't die.

Yep. Reported it. Got all the spiel about what they were going to do. Guess what….nothing done.

Oh absolutely. My son attends the same school and says most days the bully looks like the cat that’s got the cream. Luckily he is 11 but looks about 14/15, plays rugby and can be quite intimidating looking so he has never had to deal with this child, apparently they run like hell when he appears. (Which is what gave the bully the opportunity, my friends daughter had been with my son all lunchtime, his bell went for his class to start and as soon as he was indoors, my friends daughter was launched on)

Thats just awful. I’m really sorry she’s going through that.

This, if they are secondary school age report to the police. That will spur the school into action.

ETA just saw you involved the police. What are the ages? You may need to move your child.

Thank you. I’ve pulled them on absolutely everything and anything they speak to me over the phone about gets followed up and documented on email so I have a paper trail of everything